


The Amazing Tale of JC, the Lunch Lady of Warehouse D

by SnarkyLlama



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC
Genre: AU, Dwarves, M/M, Magic Realism, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-04 00:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkyLlama/pseuds/SnarkyLlama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't ever part of his life's plan, but JC actually enjoys being the lunch lady down at Warehouse D.  (a TrickC AU with BSB, too!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Amazing Tale of JC, the Lunch Lady of Warehouse D

It wasn't ever part of his life's plan, but JC actually enjoys being the lunch lady down at Warehouse D.

Well, okay, he's not too thrilled about being called "the lunch lady" because he does a lot more than serve lunch. He works an average of ten hours a day, six days a week, and that ought to gain him some respect. But, one of the first things you learn when you work with dwarves is that even though they all literally look up to you, they don't actually _look up to you_. There's no respect and if they find something funny, they will never, ever let it go.

But that's okay. They're a great group of guys, and JC's a part of them now. After a lifetime of always being a little odd and never quite fitting in anywhere with anyone, he's found his home.

Yeah. Some people find their thrill on Blueberry Hill, but JC, well... he found the Real JC down at Warehouse D.

#

It started with a mistake.

Mistakes, Brian says, are simply the unforeseen workings of Destiny. But this was before JC knew Brian, so he was a lot less Zen about it then. Back then, it was absolutely disconcerting.

Well, you should try it some time. Walk into a new place, bright and early, six AM, to be met with a pair of angry eyes and positively _threatening_ eyebrows glaring at you from crotch-level. You'd cup yourself protectively, too. Wouldn't you?

JC sure did.

"You're a human," the eyebrows announced. "This workplace is Magical Persons Only."

And then JC blinked and noticed the person attached to those eyebrows. He was a... a dwarf? But dwarves weren't real, were they?

As soon as JC thought this, several other little, brown-haired men entered the room, and JC began to realize that the world was perhaps a bigger and more-wondrous place than he'd ever imagined. Dwarves! Dwarves right here!

"Segregation's such an ugly thing," the shortest--and prettiest--dwarf said.

"Yeah," the biggest dwarf said. "Let's not be hasty. We should see how he cooks first."

"Dude..." said the dwarf with a hundred little braids in his hair. "Where'd you get those pants?"

"I made them," JC said. He loved these pants. They were silvery and zebra-striped and perfect for cheering yourself up on the day when you've given up your life-long goal of being a professional dancer and settled for a job in food service.

"Cool," Braids said. "Can you make them in my size? The uniforms here suck. I feel like I'm in a fucking Wal-Mart all the damn time."

Braids had a point. They were all wearing khakis and little blue vests and the vibe was very Major Discount Chain.

"There's nothing wrong with the uniforms," Eyebrows said.

"Why do we even have uniforms?" Braids said. "I hate looking like the rest of you."

Another dwarf joined them. "Word," he said and draped an arm over Braids' shoulder. He wasn't wearing a shirt under his vest, and he was heavily tattooed. "I did not sign up to be just another cog in the machine."

"There are union rules," Eyebrows said.

"Can you make waffles?" the biggest dwarf asked.

A big, blond dwarf popped up from behind a counter. "Did someone say waffles?"

Eyebrows glowered. "We can't have a non-Magical Person working here."

"We can't work without waffles," the two big dwarves said in unison.

Braids sniffed, then tilted his head and looked carefully at JC. JC looked back at him. This was all very overwhelming, but he liked this dwarf. He was different from the others. They had a connection... or at least a shared interest in fashionable pants.

Braids sniffed again. "I don't think the human thing's going to be a problem."

"It clearly states in the bylaws--"

"Bylaws, fly bras," Braids said.

The big blond snickered. "Fly bras!"

"But flies don't have tits," the brown-haired Waffle Lover said.

Braids scratched his nose thoughtfully. "Is Lance here yet?"

"He's an accountant," Tats said. "Freaking bankers' hours, man. I should've been one, too."

"You'd have been good at it," the pretty dwarf said and winked at him.

"Yeah, let's ask Lance," Waffle Lover said. "But until then? Let's see how he cooks."

"Can you do waffles with whipped cream?" the blond asked.

"Uh... sure?" JC said. "If you have whipping cream."

"Oh, we have everything," Pretty said.

"Everything you could possibly want," Tats said.

"Except for decent uniforms," Braids said.

"And waffles," the blond said.

"So, you _can_ do waffles? With whipped cream? And... blueberries?" Waffle Lover said.

"And strawberries?" the blond asked.

"And don't forget the chocolate chips," Waffle Lover said.

"And bananas!"

Suddenly, they all quieted down and JC could hear someone shouting in another room, "B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" Then there was a strange noise, like maybe some rhythmic foot stomping, and all the dwarves snickered and giggled.

JC thought this was the strangest morning he'd ever had.

"I'll... uh... see what I can do," he told the dwarves.

Eyebrows muttered, frowned, and stalked off.

"Um," JC said. "How many am I cooking for? The agency didn't really say."

"There's eleven of us, plus you," Braids said. "So, twelve--but until you get used to things and figure out how much the Waffle Boys here eat, you'd better aim for twenty."

"You and Justin eat just as much as we do!" Waffle Lover said.

"Justin?" JC asked.

"He's not here yet, he's probably still checking on his... forklift," Braids said.

"_Justin._ Huh, I thought dwarves all had names like--"

"Oh, what, you thought we'd all be named stupid shit like... Braidy and Inky?" Tats said.

"More like Dip Shit and Bottomless Pit," Braids said.

"Wait," Pretty said, looking over at the Waffle Boys. "Which one is which?"

Tats pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his vest pocket and put them on. "Sorry to disappoint you, _Lunch Lady_, but we all have normal names."

"Except for Lance," Braids said. "That's not normal."

Tats shrugged. "He's an elf."

"True," Braids said. "Very true. Elves aren't normal."

"Hey! Take that back!"

Waffle Lover jabbed at Braids, and JC thought maybe it was time to intervene. He'd heard people talk about midget wrestling, but he'd always thought it sounded exploitive and degrading, and that certainly wasn't something to face before a good breakfast or at least some coffee.

"Why don't you show me the kitchen?" JC said. "And introduce yourselves."

#

The kitchen, JC was relieved to discover, was human-sized.

"Elf-sized," Braids corrected him and gestured expansively at the gleaming, golden oven and refrigerator. "It's all elfin technology."

"Keebler?" JC asked, and then felt instantly stupid. Of course not _Keebler_ Elves, they were small and lived in a tree.

"Oh, yeah," Braids said. "Definitely Keebler. And you know that talking syrup-bottle lady, Mrs. Butterworth?"

JC nodded. He'd had nightmares about her and the Pillsbury Dough Boy when he was little.

"She was our last lunch lady."

"Shut up," JC said and tossed an egg shell at him.

Braids laughed, then scrambled up--using drawer handles as ladder rungs--onto the countertop. He settled far back from the edge and watched JC work while he chatted.

It would become a routine. More days than not, JC made breakfast while Chris (Braids) looked on. Either Chris liked him or Chris loved a captive audience. Whichever, JC didn't mind.

#

He soon got to know them all. There was Lance, the elfin accountant, and Christina, their "mega-pixel" as Chris liked to say. She was a pixie and kept their computers up and running. The warehouse was highly automated and the computer systems were vital.

There were, coincidentally, seven dwarves: Kevin (Eyebrows), Howie (Pretty), AJ (Tats), Nick (the blond Waffle Boy), Joey (the brown-haired Waffle Boy), Justin and Britney. Kevin was the manager and all of the other guys, except for Howie, were forklift operators. Howie and Britney were crane operators. Chris said that cranes only liked pretty little things, but Chris, JC quickly learned, said many things of questionable veracity.

And then there was Chris, who claimed to be a leprechaun though he looked no different from the dwarves, and Brian. Brian was a gnome. He was the cutest damn thing that JC had ever seen and was so undeniably a gnome that JC couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that Brian was also Kevin's cousin.

"How is that possible?" JC asked. "Gnomes and dwarves are totally different things, right?"

Chris shrugged. "The stork got confused and brought the wrong baby. It happens. It doesn't mean they're any less family, all right?"

Oh. JC understood that. He was adopted, himself. But...

"You guys don't really come from the stork, do you?"

Chris laughed. "Of course we do."

#

Their last cook had been an ogre named Lou.

"An ogre," JC said. "Aren't they--Geez, aren't they cannibals?"

"He seemed really nice," Howie said.

"Yeah," Chris said. "At first."

Lance snorted, but didn't say anything.

"Yeah," Howie said. "He was practically like Santa Claus, and we were all like 'Hey, maybe ogres just have a bad rep! Maybe they just need to invest in some better PR.'"

"Right," Lance grumbled. "Fucking ogres."

"But then," Chris said, "things started to change."

"First it was just little stuff," Howie said. "Like... well, you know how Brian feels about artificial food, right?"

JC nodded. Gnomes were more than just avid gardeners. They were, if Brian was any indication, total organic-food advocates. Artificial ingredients scared them.

"Lou started serving Pop-Tarts all of the time."

"Pop-Tarts?" JC said and looked down at the bowl where he was mixing up pastry crust as they spoke. He made everything, even their breakfast pastries, by hand in deference to Brian's sensibilities. He couldn't help it. Gnomes were just that adorable.

"Pop-Tarts," Chris said.

Justin dashed into the kitchen and looked around wildly.

"Did somebody say... 'Tarty Pop'?" He laughed, then did a back flip and bounced out of the kitchen again.

"I worry about that boy," Howie said.

JC secretly agreed with him. Justin was definitely special.

"Lou was misallocating resources," Lance said. "He totally fucked the food-service budget. He bought artificial crap because it was cheaper and pocketed the difference."

"He bought artificial crap because it was delicious and fattening," Chris said.

"Nick wasn't always so big," Howie confided. "But Lou... I saw how Lou looked at him."

Lance nodded. "Lou was fattening the dwarves up, no doubt about it. I had to take the evidence of his financial misdeeds to the authorities because no one's ever going to eat my friends."

"That's why we like you," Chris said and poked at JC's waist. "Nice trim figure like that? We know you're not planning to eat us." He grinned and then snapped his teeth when JC threw a slice of apple at him.

#

Lance liked to hang out in the kitchen most days after lunch. While JC cleaned up, Lance would make some tea and sometimes touch the different appliances and whisper to them in his deep, soothing voice. It should have been weird, Lance whispering sweet nothings into the freezer's... ear... or whatever, but it wasn't. The appliances were obviously magical.

JC wasn't that good of a cook, but nothing ever boiled over on the stove or burned in the oven. The refrigerator never needed to be restocked, and if JC so much as thought "Mmm, maybe lasagna tomorrow?" or "Ooo, chocolate-covered pineapple slices!" the ingredients would be there. Well, he still had to order dry goods like flour and yeast, but the magic made the rest of his job ridiculously easy.

He asked Lance about the magic once, and Lance explained that it was all based on the elfin theory of Just-in-Time Inventory Management. He'd whispered "Just-in-Time" so quietly that JC didn't quite catch it. He had to ask Lance to repeat himself.

"Don't say it," Chris warned.

"Just-in-Time," Lance said, just a tiny bit louder.

"It's Justin Time!" Justin crowed, suddenly appearing in the doorway. He started doing the Hammer Dance, and he was really quite good at it.

JC had no idea how he could move like that on those stubby little dwarf legs, but... he... he couldn't resist. He dropped the dishcloth in the sink and danced along with Justin. Joey came in then, probably to see if there were any leftovers. He laughed with delight and joined in the dancing. Chris and Lance stared at them like they were all freaks.

When they were finished dancing, Chris said, "Justin's our star."

"Got that right," Justin said, grinning and swiveling his hips.

"He was asked to be on a human show," Joey said, smiling like a proud father.

"On television," Lance explained.

"Well, I auditioned and was offered the part," Justin said. He bopped around for a moment, and JC could practically hear the beat that must be playing in his head. "But I had to decline once I thought about it. 'Cause like they thought I was twelve, right? And if the show ran for a long time and I didn't age... well, they'd know, wouldn't they?"

"What? Why would that--?"

"It was a Disney show," Justin said.

JC didn't understand.

"Disney," Joey said. He sighed deeply. "They're very invested in everyone believing that we're just stories."

"What? Really?" JC asked.

"Really," Lance said. "I mean, we're everywhere but people don't believe in us. They look at us and don't even see us. We're like subway workers and garbage men--all sorts of vital infrastructure people--and they just don't believe."

"That's because a lot of us preferred it that way," Chris said.

"But that's going to change," Joey said. "Because we want the vote and... stuff. Magical Persons shouldn't be so apolitical." He glanced over at Lance, who was nodding at him and smiling. "Well, what am I saying? This isn't really my soapbox, it's more Lance's and Kevin's--"

"Hey, Kevin!" Chris hollered. "Kevin! Come in here and tell Lunch Lady about Disney and Total Global Domination and shit!"

"_Total Global_\--"

Kevin came into the kitchen. "Don't listen to him, C. Lance is the only one interested in empire building--"

"It's an elf thing," Joey whispered to JC.

"--The rest of us, we just want to control at least thirty-four percent of the international shipping and inventory-management markets."

"That's only the first step," Lance said.

"Hush," Kevin told him, before turning back to JC. "It's just so we're recognized and get a political voice. Then we can start insisting on a more eco-positive global economy."

That was so awesome.

"Wow," JC said. "That's like so... so... Like, I thought I was just doing food service here, but it's really about the human spirit--well, no. What's the word? It's... it's about the Triumph of the Spirit of Diverse Beings."

"Fuman," Chris said.

"What?"

"_Fuman_," Chris said. "I coined it, isn't it cool? It's Fae/human."

"_Fae_?" JC asked.

"Magical Persons," Joey explained. "We're the Fae."

See?

JC learned something new almost every day at Warehouse D.

#

Sometime later, after JC had realized that his original questions about the kitchen appliances had gone unanswered, JC asked about them again.

"So," he said to Lance, "why do you need a cook at all, if everything's magical?" He pointed to the refrigerator. "Why doesn't that just serve up a chicken pot pie right now?"

Lance blinked at him, and AJ and Nick, who'd been huddled in the corner sharing a secret stash of Oreos that JC had brought from home, blinked and stared at him as well.

"Dawg," Nick finally said, breaking the silence. "That's a _refrigerator_. It only keeps things cold."

AJ snickered and dipped another Oreo into his glass of milk.

Lance shook his head and then spoke as if to a small child. "Refrigerators keep things cold and ovens make things hot. That's just... what they do, C. Elfin magic only enhances things, it doesn't change the nature of things. I told you, it's all based on JIT."

"J-I-T," JC said.

"The forbidden phrase," AJ said.

"Can't touch this!" Nick sang.

Oh, Just-in-Time.

"So, your magic is entirely based on inventory management stuff?"

"Mine is," Lance said. "And all of our technology here at the warehouse, it's all about supply and timing. We don't--We never mess with the natural order of things."

"It's against the union rules," Chris said, strolling in, and for the first time, JC thought that maybe they were all magicked. That would explain their uncanny talent for popping in on the middle of conversations.

"You can't make a cat _not_ a cat," Chris added and scratched his nose.

"Not with elfin magic," Lance agreed.

#

One day, just as JC was handing Justin a box of Lucky Charms from out of his secret, non-organic stash, Chris threw himself at them.

"Arr! Me lucky charms!" Chris shouted, sounding more like a pirate than a leprechaun in JC's humble opinion.

"Ha!" Justin cried. "They're mine, all mine!" He ran around the room, holding the box aloft and laughing because he was a whopping two inches taller than Chris.

Chris chased after him, and really it would have been fun, but the box was open and little bits of artificially-colored and artificially-flavored and god-only-knew-what-else cereal went flying all over the place. Brian would have fainted dead away if he'd seen it, so JC yelled and set the two of them to cleaning up the place.

He sat at the table, supervising, while Justin pouted and swept the floor and Chris hunted down stray bits and occasionally popped a brightly-colored marshmallow into his mouth. It seemed like Chris was watching JC more than what he was doing.

"What?" JC said, once the clean-up was finished and Justin had left to go check up on his forklift. The guys were always going to "check on their forklifts." JC thought it was a euphemism, but he hadn't decided if it was for pissing or jerking off or maybe something else that only Magical Persons did.

"You're adopted," Chris said.

"How--I never told you that!"

"But you are, though, right?"

JC nodded.

"Thought so," Chris said. "It explains a lot."

"It doesn't! It--what? I don't want you to give the gnome a heart attack _because I'm adopted_?"

"Hmm," Chris said thoughtfully. "Yeah, I think it explains that, too."

"You are so full of shit."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"You know I've googled you," JC said.

Chris' eyes flashed as he grinned. "I'm flattered."

"Leprechauns are tricksters. I shouldn't believe a word you say."

"But sometimes the truth is more fun than fiction," Chris said. And then, in true Justin fashion, he did a back flip and bounced away.

#

All in all, working at Warehouse D was pretty amazing.

The work was easy and JC had never eaten better in his life. There were new things to marvel at every day, and plenty of gossip breaks and he was never, ever bored. But the very best thing about Warehouse D--aside from all of his new friends--was the singing. It wasn't "Heigh-Ho," but Disney had definitely gotten one thing right. Dwarves sang while they worked.

They sang a little when they were hanging out with JC, but that was nothing compared to the music JC heard when he was alone in the kitchen. He only caught it in bits and pieces from far away--

Kevin had absolutely refused to let a non-Magical Person into the actual warehouse part of the Warehouse. He claimed it was for everyone's safety and gave JC a look like he was an accident waiting to happen, which was ridiculous. JC had never once broken out into spontaneous back flips in a room filled with sharp, pointy objects and hot cooking surfaces. He could be trusted to not get himself hurt.

\--but it was still beautiful, full of complex harmonies and stunning solos. And it wasn't just the dwarves. Sometimes he heard all of their voices, Lance rumbling and Chris, high and pure, and everyone else ranging in between, and he had to put down his pots and pans and just dance.

JC loved to dance and he'd thought music was magic long before he knew that magic was real, but he'd hated the professional dance scene and how he'd been expected to sell _all_ of his body's talents, not just the ones set to music. But now... now he was free to do the best dancing of his life surrounded by magical toasters and organic cabbages and a thousand other delightful things.

Life was pretty much perfect.

Except... it would be even better if he could just hear the singing without heavy doors muffling the sound.

#

Since nothing ever burned on the stove, JC could slip away sometimes. He liked to lean against the Magical Persons Only sign by the main doors and listen for a while.

He was propped against the sign one day, tapping his feet to a catchy, mostly AJ-and-Nick song, when Brian came by dragging and tugging and really struggling with a child-sized portable basketball hoop. Gnomes were a fair bit smaller than child-sized.

"Hey, Brian," JC said. "Can I help?"

Brian wiped a little sweat from his face and smiled the cutest darn smile. "Oh, would you?"

"Sure. No problem." JC looked at the hoop, then back at the double doors and thought that Kevin couldn't glare at him too much if he broke the rules in order to help Brian. "Wanna hold the doors for me?"

"Yeah," Brian said. "Great!"

So, Brian held a door open and JC waltzed right into the forbidden zone with his basketball-hoop partner. Then Brian led the way and JC followed, looking around curiously as he hummed along with the music which was just that much better now that he was on the right side of the doors.

The warehouse was larger than he'd imagined. Huge shelves towered above them and stretched as far as he could see. The aisles between the shelves were so wide, he could have driven a truck down them. Somehow, he'd thought everything would be more... cramped and dwarf-sized.

Brian stopped suddenly.

"Oh, hey! You haven't been in here before, have you?"

"No..." JC said. He hoped Brian wouldn't kick him out.

"Cool! I get to show you everything first. Chris will be so jealous!"

"Why will Chris--Oh!"

JC was distracted as Joey raced towards them on his... forklift? JC had never seen a forklift before, but he had kind of thought they'd be all industrial-looking and painted a grubby "safety" yellow. Instead, Joey's forklift was strangely graceful and patterned all over in soft browns and reds vaguely reminiscent of a leopard.

Joey sang a few notes and seemed to pet the forklift, and it braked in front of them. A small part of JC's brain said, _Cool, touch-screen control panels!_, while a larger part trilled with excitement, _Oh, oh, oh!_, and insisted that it was something else all together.

"Are they... are they--?" JC stammered.

"Hey, C!" Joey said. "Are you delivering snacks now? You're the best lunch lady ever!"

"Do... do you sing to your forklift?" JC asked.

"Yeah," Joey said. "Of course I do."

"Are they controlled by it?"

Joey looked at him blankly.

"Um... are they... like remote-controlled, but with music?"

"Nah," Joey said and pat the forklift again. "They just like it, I guess."

"They run better that way," Brian said.

"Do you have a forklift, too?" JC asked. He'd never quite figured out what Brian actually did at the warehouse.

"No," Brian said. "But I've got... a nice little backhoe to help me in the garden. She's pretty much the same as a forklift."

"Wow," JC said. Music-loving forklifts! Magical technology was so fucking amazing!

He really wanted a forklift of his own.

#

JC started delivering carrot sticks and cookies to the warehouse every afternoon.

He stayed close to the doors, so he wasn't tempting fate and bringing the wrath of Kevin down upon himself or the other guys. He would just stay for twenty minutes, watching the guys sing to their machines. They seemed so... connected to them. It made their music seem even more intimate and special, and he couldn't stop thinking about it.

In the kitchen, he started singing to the appliances. The freezer never seemed to listen to him like it did when Lance whispered to it, but no one found it weird that JC was singing. Justin loved singing along with JC, and soon he was dragging Britney with him so they could sing and dance together.

Joey and Lance liked to watch them. They'd sit at the table, sipping hot drinks and sneaking a few cookies, and join in whenever they particularly liked a song. JC really liked it. There was something really comfortable about them, they felt like... family. That made him feel all warm and stupid inside--and then Chris would walk in and get a strange gleam in his eyes and JC would feel all hot and bothered instead.

#

"Hey!" Nick shouted. "C! C, come on!"

"Forty minutes," JC told him.

"Huh?"

"Dinner won't be ready for another forty minutes."

"Forget dinner," Nick said. "It's time for the drag--uh. The drag races."

JC blinked and rubbed his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well lately. He kept dreaming about giant, mutant caterpillars. Last night, the caterpillar had eaten everything in the kitchen, including the toaster, and then turned into a giant, electric butterfly. JC had woken up crying and he didn't even know why. The toaster was nice, but JC wasn't that fond of it.

"What?" he said. "Races?"

"Forklift races. Come on, you don't want to miss them. Justin and Chris are great racers."

Nick grabbed JC's hand and pulled him all the way. Dwarves were surprisingly strong.

"You missed the first lap!" AJ told them when they arrived. "They were neck-and-neck, too. This is going to be a lot closer than last year's."

The forklifts were down at the far end of the warehouse. Justin's was a mottled blue and Chris' was sleek and black with a silvery... um... JC didn't know the technical term. A silvery underbelly?

Nick climbed up onto a shelf where Britney was also perched. As the forklifts neared them, they began jumping up and down.

"Woo, baby!" Britney hollered. "I feel the need for speed!"

JC had to laugh, swept away with her enthusiasm, and then there was a shriek and _holy shit!_

The world went black.

#

JC didn't want to open his eyes.

His head hurt like it had been hit with a ton of bricks, and he thought that he really rather not know if he was laying in a puddle of blood. Oh... No... That made him want to throw up, too. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried not to think at all.

Trying not to think never works.

He thought he was dying. He could hear an angel singing.

It was really beautiful. The sound was true and pure in a way nothing had ever been before. That's irony for you, he thought. You have to die to hear the most _alive_ sound ever.

But he didn't seem to be in any hurry to die, and the angel was starting to sound a lot like Christina...

"I'm sorry!" Britney cried somewhere really close to his ears. "It was an accident!"

"Oh, hey look," Joey said. "It's dolphin-safe tuna."

Justin laughed. "What the fuck? Death by a case of dolphin-safe tuna?"

"He's not dead," Joey said.

_Wanna bet?_ JC thought.

"He's not a dolphin," Chris said. "How many times do I have to tell you, he's a--"

Something with really hot breath snuffled loudly at JC's ear. He flinched and opened his eyes and stared.

And something big and mottled and blue stared right back at him.

And then something big and mottled and blue _licked_ him, and JC yelped and sat up.

"Justin, your forklift just licked me!"

And then JC blinked and stared and thought that through while the dwarves all clamored around him.

"Justin's _dragon_ just licked me," JC said and stared at the dragon.

A dragon! A dragon here!

Chris carefully touched the back of JC's head. "Hey, welcome back," he said quietly.

JC turned to look at him and...

Wow. Sparkly.

Chris had an aura all around him. No, they all had auras... oh, and look... more dragons...

"Dragons," JC said.

"You can really see the dragons?" Chris asked as he touched JC's head again. It didn't hurt even half as much as it should have.

"They're beautiful," JC said.

"Yeah, they're--"

"You idiots!" Kevin came storming toward them. "Safety regulations exist for a reason--and why aren't you getting him a first-aid kit or anything?"

"He's a fairy," Lance said. "They heal quickly."

"He's a--" Kevin stopped and his eyebrows bristled all together.

JC stared at him. Lance was crazy if he thought fairies had eyebrows like that. Kevin was a dwarf, plain and simple.

Kevin's eyebrows twitched and jumped. "Whoa! He _is_ a fairy!"

"Told you," Chris said. "Told you, told you, told you."

Lance poked Chris.

"Hey!"

"What's going on?" JC asked.

#

So, JC was a fairy.

He wasn't particularly impressed by this after Chris dragged him home and made sure his head was all in one piece, and then explained the whole fairy method of child-rearing to him.

If Chris was to be believed, it went pretty much like this:  
1) Put a spell on your baby so that it looks and acts like a human;  
2) Ditch it with a human family;  
3) Wait;  
4) Come back for it when all those pesky childhood years are over;  
5) Remove the spell;  
6) Rinse and repeat.

"But you were adopted," Chris said. "So I guess, they came back for you and couldn't find you, and the spell remained in place."

"Only to be removed by half a case of tuna fish falling on my head?"

Chris shrugged. "Magic takes all forms, you know. Maybe your birth parents really liked tuna. Maybe... maybe the C in JC stands for 'Chicken of the Sea.'"

"Shut up," JC said and started to giggle. Tuna fish and fairies and dragons--it was really too much.

"Hey," Chris said. "Give it a chance."

"I don't think I like fairies," JC said.

"I love fairies," Chris said. He leaned close and whispered, "I hear they'll try anything sexually."

"Yeah?" JC said.

"Oh, yeah. _Anything_."

Hmm... Well... maybe Chris had a point.

"So they wouldn't... let something like a little size difference stand in their way?"

"No," Chris said. "They're really creative."

"Maybe I'll give it a try."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," JC said and leaned forward and licked his lips suggestively. "'Cause... you know... I really, _really_ want..."

Chris' aura leapt and danced and sparkled extra brightly, and JC bit back a grin.

"My own forklift," JC said--and dived off the bed as Chris pounced at him.

#

And the sparkly dancing boys and their magical toasters and musical "forklifts" all lived happily ever after down at Warehouse D.


End file.
